yeah at this point i don't understand how KU kids could talk bad about RP.
it's pretty funny to hear KU kids say "well the hawks may be bad, but K-State will be really bad when OBz retires because hey just look at what Ron Prince did!" Well Ron won more games in a single year than KU won during the 2010, 2011, and 2012 seasons combined. Even during Prince's worst season, he still won 5 games.
Also, it's important to remember that Prince was, by all accounts, completely incompetent, but yet, he still bumbled his way into 5 wins at K-State.
If anything, the Prince era should give confidence to K-Staters nervous about the Post Snyder days. We can look East with relief and know that, even with Ron Prince, it will never be as bad as any one of the past 3 seasons the Jayhawks have suffered through.
There is such a thing as context. Ron Prince had the luxury of playing in the Big 12 North and matching up against Baylor and Iowa State when they were absolute garbage. The Big 12 is better from top to bottom now. If your point is that the Ron Prince hire was better than the Turner Gill hire, I'd agree, but let's face it, both pretty much sucked. Prince was a combined 0-9 against KU, MU, and NU. That being said, Prince is still probably the 2nd-best coach in K-State football history, which is hilarious in and of itself.
You want the context? Ok.
First of all, Prince didn't inherit a whole lot in '06. K-State was coming off two years that were putrid. He started a freshman quarterback that he recruited his first year on the job. That future pro was handing off to another future pro he recruited (johnson) and another true freshman he recruited (babyshaker).
Regarding the schedule, Prince split with Baylor. Baylor also had 3 conference wins in '06 (the year they beat K-State), which, without looking it up, is probably right around Baylor's average Big 12 win total. Baylor was awful in '07 and the Chizik era was terrible (although Prince lost a game to ISU), but to imply that Prince feasted on conference weaklings is outrageous. If anything, Prince's downfall was losing games he was expected to win at the time (the loss to CU in '08 really sealed his fate).
Back then, OU and UT were superpowers and Prince played them. I mean, Prince's biggest win was UT in '06 - they were top 5 at the time. Prince also played two legit top 5 teams in '07 (KU and MU). He also played at Auburn. He also played two very good Louisville teams. Prince played OU in '08 who went to a national title game. All in all, K-State was playing a difficult OOC, the Big 12 had better teams during that era, and Prince certainly wasn't lucky enough to avoid those teams when they were hot.
There's been what,
one legitimate top 5 team since the beginning of the Gill era (OSU '11)?
So contextually, if we're ignoring the inherent advantages K-State's program has, Prince's job was harder than Gill's and Weis's. The conference is worse now. K-State's schedule was tougher back then.
Prince played tougher teams, with a team he assembled, and won more games.
So the point remains, even if this year and talent
is 2004/2005, K-State could hire someone as inept as Prince, and the bottom is still higher than KU's best season since 2009, and even then, there would be k-state students (ahem) that would email the president of the university begging for that coach to be fired.
